Gwin's Mildly Entertaining Version of Events
by Duckweed
Summary: Ever wondered what our favorite little marten thinks of life, the universe, and the PLOT? Then this is the story for you...
1. Introduction

**Introduction**

Salutations. If, by any chance you have read the fairly entertaining book entitled Inkheart by Kernella, (or was it Carmelita?) Funke, you are probably a bit surprised to discover that I can read and write. You probably know very little about me besides the fact that I'm small, furry, cute, and way to fond of biting people's fingers. My name, as you may have guessed, is Gwin. This is not to be confused with Gwen, which stands for Gwendolyn, which is a girl's name. So there.

As you are most likely aware, I happen to be a marten. Anyone with questions concerning my species can read the following:

_mar-ten (noun) any of several small, flesh eating mammals (genus Martes) like a weasel but larger, that live chiefly in trees and have a long slender body, short legs, and soft, thick, valuable fur._

Over the coarse of my life I have, on several occasions, been mistaken not only for a cat and a Pomeranian dog, but for a fire breathing dragon and a hat rack, so this should clear some things up. If you are a zoologist and happen to care what specific kind of marten I am, I haven't got the faintest idea. The Encyclopedia of Animals has descriptions of no fewer than seven different types of martens, none of which have horns. I suppose this means that most humans are under the mistaken impression that I am an imaginary creature. However, a close inspection of the book's index revealed that there are no human beings listed in the encyclopedia either, and surely people don't believe themselves to be imaginary. Go figure.

So, anyway, I'm here to tell you my version of the events recorded in Inkheart. No doubt you know the basic story line from somewhere else. In the nine years prior to the opening of the book, myself and my so-called "master", Dustfinger, were hanging around in the 20th Century after being tele-ported there against our will by some idiot called Silvertongue. What did we _do _for those nine years? Well, mostly we wandered around aimlessly, and tried to survive while most of the "normal people" we encountered mistook us for an escaped convict and a mutated kitten.

Meanwhile, the _bad guys_, a.k.a. Capricorn and friends, set up their little village and used it as a sort of a base while they terrorized the populous. Every so often, we went and hung around there. Most of these visits to the lair of the archvillian were coupled with various heroic, but ill-fated attempts to rescue that _oh-so-pretty_ damsel in distress, Resa. Most of these escapades seemed to end in a great deal of pain and humiliation on Dustfinger's part, so we gave up eventually.

Needless to say, my "master" was not to happy to be stuck in the real world, so once or twice we went back to Silvertongue's place to beg for mercy. The man generally listened patiently while Dustfinger gave him a long speech about how much he hated it here, how he didn't understand what this ekletricety stuff was, how everything was to fast, how the air was so polluted he couldn't breath, and how if he was stuck here much longer, his wife would give him up for dead and marry someone else. I even added a few things about how annoying it was that people kept mistaking me for a funny looking cat, but I don't think anyone was listening.

When we finished, Silvertongue seemed a _little_ sorry for us, but evidently not enough to actually _help _us, unless, of coarse, you consider letting Dustfinger sleep on the couch a solution to all life's problems. My opinion of Silvertongue has always been that he is as polite as he is useless.

After this, there is not much more to be said about the first nine years in the 20th century. Dustfinger was generally miserable, I was generally bored out of my mind, no one else seemed to really care, and if you want any more information, you can wait till the next chapter.


	2. Chapter 1

**A/N Yo. I finally wrote chapter 2! Yay! Okay, here's my review responses:**

**mynameisbob: Um, thanx. I'm not going to say anything to you on here, because your leaning over my shoulder watching me type. HELP!**

**cgflower: Thanks for the tips! You rule! The definition of marten was from Webster's Dictionary.**

**Dusty's Girl: Hello. If you're Dusty's girl, does that make you Roxane? Thank you so much for reviewing my story!**

**Kreepi Spicer: Just one thing—I knowwhat Cornelia Funke's name is. Gwin, however, doesn't.**

**Superfrog: See above.**

**Goopower: Thanx!**

**NicoliE: Um, very sorry about that. I hope this chapter looks okay….**

**Moonlit River: Thanks for offering, but I've already got a beta, and she's sitting next to me, watching me type, so I'm not about to fire her just now. She'd probably murder me. Sorry about that.**

**The Strawberry Popper: I love your name! What kind of strawberries do you pop?**

**TtRavenFan1: Yes I am, as you can see. Thanx for the encouragement.**

**Disclaimer: All characters belong to the wonderful Cornelia Funke. Except for the paperclip. The paperclip is mine.**

As you can imagine, it is not a particularly pleasant experience to be stuck in a soaking wet backpack with nothing to keep you company aside from a bent paperclip. Usually I don't mind my totebag-like accommodations; in fact it's generally quite cozy. I just don't particularly like the smell of soggy leather, or having my "soft, thick, valuable fur," soaking wet.

Actually, I have quite a few more interesting objects stationed in my living quarters along with the aforementioned paperclip. There is, of course, an assortment of matches, torches, bottles of lighter fluid, and other implements you would expect your average pyromaniac to have handy. I also share my humble abode with a picture of Resa, some other pictures of fairies cut out of children's books, three loose buttons of various shapes and sizes, and a whole lot of lint.

The paperclip is by far my most prized possession. You have no idea how much fun you can have twisting an ordinary paperclip into different shapes with your teeth. If you get really bored, you can always jab the twisted wire through the leather of the backpack, and poke whoever it is carrying you from place to place. I try not to do this very often-- Dustfinger is miserable enough as it is.

On the particular evening I plan on describing to you, my esteemed human companion and myself were about to put into action a scheme laid out for us by the archvillian, Capricorn. I've told Dustfinger a hundred times not to turn to the dark side, (he makes a horrible bad guy; much to soft-hearted), but does he ever listen to me? Of course not...

Anyway, this plan of Capricorn's involved talking Silvertongue into giving us the book from whence we came, as well as convincing him to let himself be kidnapped by us without putting up a fight.

Please don't ask me why my so-called master chose to arrive at Silvertongue's house in the middle of the night, or for that matter, to stand about fifteen feet away from the house and look at it, instead of doing the obvious thing and knocking on the door.

"Hey!" I shouted, "You know how damp it is in this backpack? I¹m nearly drowning, and you can't be too much better off out there. Has it ever even occurred to you to buy an umbrella?"

I received no answer, aside from a promise to let me out to go hunting after he spoke to Silvertongue. I replied that we would never talk to the man unless Dustfinger traveled the remaining fifteen feet to the front door and perhaps ring the doorbell. He ignored me as usual.

After what felt like hours, I heard a distant voice call "Dustfinger! Is that you?"

Dustfinger waited for a moment before responding, either out of nervousness, or because he wanted to make a more dramatic appearance, but eventually I felt the steady stream of water soaking through the backpack lessen slightly. I managed to squeeze my nose out of the top of the bag for an instant, just long enough to get a glimpse of the house's interior, and Silvertongue's daughter, over Dustfinger's shoulder.

The girl, Maggie or whatever her name is, was considerably older than when I had seen her last. This is quite understandable, as that was nine years ago. The girl had long blond hair and blue eyes; she looked a lot like Resa. However, unlike Resa, she didn't look at all happy to see us.

I can't say all that much about the following conversation that you don't already know. Basically, Dustfinger tried to convince Silvertongue to give himself up to Capricorn, and do whatever the archvillian asks him to. I suppose you could say that Dustfinger employed a "come with us and no one will get hurt" sort of approach to the problem at hand.

Silvertongue did the sensible thing and refused my master's offer. Of course, then he did an altogether insensible thing and invited us over for tea and crumpets the next day, which promptly canceled out the sensible thing he did a few seconds ago.

After a polite goodbye from Silvertongue, and a rather disappointed goodbye from Dustfinger, we went our separate ways.

Basta's car was parked about a half mile away from Silvertongue's place of residence. Actually, it wasn¹t really Basta's car, because Basta can't drive. I suppose that it could be considered Flatnose's car, even though the machine is stolen property, because Flatnose likes to wring the necks of pigeons who relieve themselves on it, and I simply can't imagine that brute lifting a finger to protect someone else's car from vandalism.

Dustfinger let me out of his backpack before we reached the _bad guy's _hangout, so I could avoid getting to close to them. Basta and friends like to shoot cats and squirrels a lot for the fun of it, and many times to often have I been mistaken for felines and rodents.

As I hid in the bushes, Dustfinger told the formerly mentioned minions of Capricorn everything that had passed between himself and Silvertongue. Well, almost everything. He left out all of the _hello_s, _goodbye_s, and _how are you doing_s.

Many people have been known to describe Basta's voice as sounding "raspy like a cat's tongue". This is a more or less accurate observation, depending on exactly how raspy a tongue the cat you're talking about is, and weather or not the feline in question is playing the violin.

Basta as usual, was fiddling with his knife, which was, naturally, making Dustfinger quite nervous. Finally, the two of them got around to discussing what, exactly, Dustfinger should do next, or in other words, weather or not he should go back and have tea and crumpets with Silvertongue. They decided, after a lot of threats and taunts from Basta, that my master and I should hang around outside the Folchart's house the next day to make sure that they didn't try to sneak off, as they did once before when Capricorn showed signs of finding them.

Needless to say, Dustfinger was rather relieved to get away from Basta and Co. After that little escapade, we attempted to get out of the rain by sleeping under a tarp in the middle of the wilderness somewhere.

**A/N Read and Review! Well, actually, if your reading this, you've probably already read this chapter. But you can still review!**


	3. Chapter 2

A/N: Dude! I finally updated! Are you proud of me? I hope so! Thanks to everyone who reviewed. Umm, I'm not particularly fond of this chapter personally, but I hope you all like it anyway. Please don't ask me why I named the weasel Odious Asparagus. As a matter of fact, I almost called him Infectious Virus, so his currant name can in fact be considered an improvement.

Chapter 3

The next day, I was properly introduced to Silvertongue's daughter. I had slept through most of the morning, and had originally intended to sleep through the rest of the day as well. However, I had no such luck. I quite suddenly found myself being dragged unceremoniously from my place of repose. 

"This is Gwin," Dustfinger explained to the wide eyed girl, "You can tickle him behind the ears if you like. He's very sleepy at the moment, so he won't bite."

"Does he usually?" asked the girl.

"Yes," said Silvertongue, "If I were you I'd keep my fingers away from that little brute."

"Excuse me!" I exclaimed, offended, "'Little brute' is no way to refer to a small flesh eating mammal like a weasel but larger, that lives chiefly in trees and has a long slender body, short legs, and soft, thick, valuable fur!"

Needless to say, I was ignored by all. Up until this point, I had not really got a chance to look around, since I was rather busy defending my good name. Now I realized that Meggie, Dustfinger and myself were in the back seat of an automobile. Silvertongue was driving, sitting in the seat in front of us.

Dustfinger gave me a bit of stale bread for breakfast, while Meggie patted me on the head. I have to admit, I do like being patted on the head quite a bit. It must be some strange personality quirk.

Soon, the human beings got tired of arguing about whether or not my horns are real, and fell asleep. Meggie and Dustfinger did anyway, Silvertongue didn't, thankfully, as he was driving.

I must express my humblest apologies that I am not able to give you all that much detail on our arrival at Elinor's place of residence. I was trapped in my backpack at the time, and couldn't see anything aside from the various objects mentioned in the previous chapter. I spent more or less the whole time fiddling with my one and only companion, the paperclip.

By the time my human companions were introduced to Aunt Elinor, I'd somehow managed to get the little piece of wire twisted around my paw in a most uncomfortable position. In the process of getting it off I accidentally stabbed an illustration of a unicorn in the head. I suppose I should be thankful I didn't sabotage the photo of Resa--most likely Dustfinger would not be to happy with me if I happened to punch a hole through her head.

The greater part of our stay at Aunt Elinor's house was more than a little dull, from my point of view. It didn't take me long to figure out that the Bookworm lady was not particularly fond of small furry animals, or men who like to carry them around in backpacks.

We slept in the mansion's attic, on one of those fold-up cots. There was just enough room to lay down between the crates of books. Honestly, Elinor can't possibly have read all the books she owns, there are way to many. I don't reckon she ever does much besides read, although she probably spends some of her time gloating over her literary treasures.

While Dustfinger was occupied by acting mysterious and making cryptic remarks designed to baffle Silvertongue's daughter, I made a somewhat interesting discovery of my own. I met one of our fellow castaways, a character from a book trapped in the much less romantic real world. None of the human beings ever knew about him, and if they did they wouldn't have cared much. Humans are a conceited species, and they tend to underestimate their fellow life forms.

I was meandering along in Elinor's garden, the morning after our arrival. I had just been booted out of the kitchen by she who doesn't like small furry animals, and I was still sulking. How dare she call me unsanitary? I probably smell better than she does! I'd never been more insulted in my life. Not even when Dustfinger's wife refused to let me sit on her bed at night, saying that I pounced on her feet whenever she moved, keeping her awake. At least Roxane never commented on my personal hygiene.

Before long, I saw one of my fellow small furry animals, a weasel, sitting by a pool, looking rather lost and sorry for himself. Being the kind and compassionate person that I am, I came over to him and asked what was the matter, after introducing myself.

"I'm lost," said the weasel, "And I feel sorry for myself."

"I guessed that much," said I, "Could you possibly elaborate on that?"

The weasel blinked at me, and went on with his story. "My name," he paused dramatically, "Is Odious Asparagus."

"No wonder you're unhappy," I commented, wondering at the bizarre sense of humor my companion's parents must have had.

"There's a lot more to it than that. You can call me Odious. Just don't mispronounce it. It's Oh-dee-us, not Oddius, or Odysseus."

"Right. Now that I know your name, you can tell me something more interesting."

"Well, it's kind of hard to believe, and even harder to understand, but I'll try my best to explain. Me and my friend Sable, she's a ferret, were just about to put into action a plan that would take over the world."

"That's a good start."

"Well, the point is that we were just about to take over the world, when everything started spinning around and I found myself here."

"Right here? Sitting by this pond?"

"Not exactly. I was in someone's house. I couldn't think straight, and I was kind of dizzy, and I just ran away. I got tired after a bit, though, and this looked like a good place to sit and rest. I don't suppose you believe me?"

"Oh, I believe you. The same thing happened to me."

"Just now?"

"Oh, no. I"ve been here for about nine years already."

"You've been in this garden for nine years?"

"No. I¹ve been living in this world for nine years."

"This is a different world?"

I then proceeded to explain to the dreary looking beast everything I knew about Silvertongue's unusual abilities, and how he had a knack for permanently rearranging people's lives.

I'm not quite sure that Odious understood much, or anything, of what I said, but I wanted to help him out, at least a little. After I'd explained everything, Odious told me that he would go back and find whoever it was who had read him out of his own story, and set off.

You would think that Dustfinger would be quite interested in knowing that there happened to be yet another reader living close enough to Elinor's house that a runt of a weasel could walk there from here, but he took no notice of my astounding news. Sometimes I begin to wonder if we're even speaking the same language.


	4. Chapter 3

A/N: Ya, I updated. I hope you're all thrilled, dude.

Disclaimer: Ha ha, yeah I'm really Cornelia Funke in disguise. No, really!

On with the story! This chapter is the chapter that comes after the last chapter, but before the next chapter. No, I'm not kidding, believe it or not.

After my encounter with Odious Asparagus, nothing out of the ordinary happened until Basta and Co. turned up to kidnap Silvertongue. Of course, they had been planning this for quite a long time, so it came as no surprise to Dustfinger and and me.

It was a very simple operation--my so-called master convinced Meggie to come and watch him fool around with his pyrotechnics in the garden, after which Meggie convinced Elinor to switch off her burglar alarm so she could get back in the house again afterwards. So, while Meggie and Dustfinger hung out in the yard playing with matches and lighter fluid, Basta, Flatnose and Cockerel walked up to Elinor's front door and let themselves in.

I never actually got to see Silvertongue getting kidnapped, as I was, at the time, sitting on the lowermost branch of a large oak tree near the mansion's driveway. I did, however, get to witness a steady stream of people walking and/or running in and out of Elinor's front door.

Soon after Basta and friends entered, Meggie ran over and followed them, looking panic stricken. About five minutes later, the kidnappers came back out with Silvertongue in tow, not so very closely followed by poor little Meggie, with tears streaming down her face. I expect I would have watched Elinor come out too, running after Meggie, if Dustfinger hadn't turned up right about then and stuffed me back into my backpack.

Being in a bit of a hurry, Dustfinger just happened to leave the backpack open enough for me to see what was going on, for which I was rather grateful. I don't particularly like not knowing what's happening, and

besides, it does get terribly stuffy in there sometimes.

While Meggie was standing in the middle of the road looking sad, lonely, miserable, and generally feeling sorry for herself, Dustfinger and I were hiding behind a conveniently located chestnut tree.

As Meggie cries and Dustfinger struggles with his far too active conscience, I would like to clarify a few more or less random and useless facts about my "master". Please pay close attention, because some of this stuff may or may not be important later in life.

- Dustfinger likes to push his hair out of his eyes. This may be a major plot point, or it could mean that he seriously needs to trim his bangs more often.

- Dustfinger usually pushes his hair back from his eyes when it is wet, and/or being rained on.

- If Dustfinger¹s face ever shows any expression besides a blank stare or a nervous smile, the situation is dire.

- Dustfinger very rarely calls children by name. All young people are addressed as "you there", "boy", or "princess". The significance of this is more or less unfathomable.

All right, now that we've gotten that out of the way, we can move back to the actual story.

Once Meggie had gone back to the house and Dustfinger had, apparently, beaten his conscience into temporary submission, we set out to meet Basta a couple of blocks away, as we had arranged ahead of time.

Basta, for a change, seemed almost happy to see us. He greeted Dustfinger with the usual "Hey Dirty fingers," accompanied by an evil grin. The two of them began to converse in hushed tones about something terribly important, presumably the Book (with a capital B--very, very significant) which they had kidnapped along with Silvertongue. As it turned out, the book they had in captivity was called One Hundred Songs to Sing about an Underwater Centipede by Nostril O'Toole, which is not the book they had originally planed on kidnapping. As neither Basta nor Capricorn was interested in singing about underwater centipedes, they wanted Dustfinger to bring them the original Book, instead of the book which had no capital B, and was obviously inferior.

While all this was going on, I was curled up in a small nest made of lint and paper scraps, which would have been quite comfortable had it not been for the glass bottle of something flammable jabbing me in the back. To keep myself occupied, I was trying to twist my one and only paperclip back into something vaguely paperclip shaped. As you recall, Dustfinger had left the backpack slightly open. I haven't the faintest idea how it happened, but while Dustfinger was talking to Basta the paperclip somehow managed to catapult itself out of the backpack and onto the roadside. Always ready to come to the rescue of my most treasured possession, I naturally jumped out after it.

I soon spotted it laying a little ways off, gleaming in the moonlight. Easily avoiding Dustfinger's attempts to recapture me, I seized the paperclip before seizing the opportunity to get away from Basta, whom I have never been particularly friendly with. Not that I ever had any intention of abandoning Dustfinger (I seriously doubt he could get along without me), but I was getting a bit hungry, and I welcomed the chance to go hunting.

I decided to bring the paperclip back to Elinor's garden and leave it somewhere before looking for something to eat. After making my way through the small, forested area I left my most prized possession at the base of a lamp post. I came back and got it later, after eating my fill of small birds and mammals.

When the sun had started to rise, Dustfinger came looking for me. Like I said, I never intended to run away, so I let him catch me eventually, after making him run at least seven laps around Elinor's house, chasing me through the underbrush. By the time the plan to get the Book was put into action, the sun was high in the sky.


	5. Chapter 4

A/N: Weee! I updated! Thanks to everyone who reviewed.

To Dusty's Girl: Sorry about the weird little one. The computer likes to randomly change all the apostrophes into ones. They aggravate my beta to no end. I guess I forgot to change one of them back when I was editing.

Ya, this chapter is a bit short, and somehow it doesn't seem as funny as the others, because I couldn't really think of to many jokes making fun of the stuff that happens here. Oh well, I hope you like it anyway.

Chapter 4

I can't tell you all that much about what happened the day after my daring escape--I was stuck in my backpack as usual. I sat there curled up and half asleep as Dustfinger carried on a conversation with Meggie. As it turned out, it was the girl (or "Princess", as my master would have said,) who had the Book. The actual Book, I mean, not the one about underwater centipedes.

Meggie, naturally, wanted to know what had happened to her father. As Dustfinger was under strict orders not to tell her the truth, he invented a random and surprisingly creative story about stealing a moped. I must admit, I was rather impressed. Up until then, I had been under the impression that Dustfinger hadn't the faintest idea what a moped was. To think that only nine years ago, my human companion was still getting funny looks for saying things like "What is this kred-it card of which you speak?"

So, anyway, Dustfinger eventually managed to convince Meggie and Elinor to bring the Book to Capricorn's infamous village, and it looked as if he would be able to fulfill the archvillian's desire to acquire (goodness me, that rhymed, didn't it?) the girl and the Book.

As absolutely nothing of note happened for the rest of the day, I shall skip to later that night, up in Elinor's attic.

I sat on one of the many crates surrounding the small, folding cot. Dustfinger was having trouble sleeping, by the look of it. He would flop down on the makeshift bed, lay there for a few minutes, get up, stare blankly out the window, pace back and forth, stub his toes on the many piles of books, and curse at no one in particular before laying down again and therefore starting the entire process all over again.

After about a half an hour or so, he seemed to decide that spending the entire night like this would serve no purpose what so ever, aside from acquiring a set of very sore toes and setting a world record for the most creative profanity. So, he forced me into a collar, put me on his shoulder, and slipped down the attic stairway.

We stopped just outside Meggie's room, where Dustfinger had to pick the lock. No doubt Elinor suspected that we would try to sneak in and steal the Book. She was only half right, of course, as we didn't actually STEAL it on this particular occasion.

We crept in, pausing by Meggie's bed as Dustfinger agonized over his future betrayal of such a sweetly clueless and innocent little girl. Once he had yet again defeated his conscience in a battle of willpower (which does not say much for Dustfinger's conscience,) he pulled out a flashlight and opened the large, poppy colored box that lay in the center of the room.

Dustfinger fished through the brightly colored books until he found the one he was looking for: The Book. If you don't have any idea what book I'm talking about, you obviously haven't been paying much attention, so I don't see why I should bother to tell you.

My master picked it up and started to read. Upon the realization that I was expected to sit on his shoulder all night while he stood in the dark with a flashlight reading the story of his own life, I decided to do what countless bored companions of bibliophiles have done throughout the ages--I read over his shoulder.

It is a very strange experience to read a book in which you are one of the characters, even if the author doesn't make much of an effort to develop your personality. Judging from Dustfinger's frequent angst filled sighs, if the author does develop your personality the experience is unbearably nostalgic. He closed the book after reading most of the third chapter.

"Coward!" he whispered to himself. "Oh what a coward you are, Dustfinger!" he paused, biting his lip. "Come on! This may be your last chance, you fool! Once Capricorn has the book he'll never let you look at it again."

"I hope you don't make this a habit," I said. "People who talk to themselves can be a bit annoying sometimes."

Dustfinger ignored me and flipped through the Book again, before closing it suddenly with a snap. He waited to make sure Meggie was still sound asleep before placing the Book back in the box and closing the lid.

"Did you see that, Gwin?" he said softly. "I just dare not look. Wouldn't you rather find a braver master? Think it over."

"In my experience, brave people get killed a heck of a lot more often than the cowardly scum do," I replied, trying to be encouraging.

Dustfinger gave no reply, but slid out into the corridor again. He closed the door to Meggie's room before uttering what is quite possibly the catchiest and most quoted line that has ever passed his lips to this very day.

"Who wants to know the end of a story in advance?"


	6. Chapter 5

AN: Yo! I (finally) wrote another chapter, believe it or not. Thanks to everyone who reviewed, including the people who just reviewed in order to complain about the lack of updates. I feel so loved.

Chapter Five

I must take a moment to address my faithful readers. Thank you, (whoever you are) for bothering to read about the exploits of this story's most inexplicably heroic and adorable marten--yes that would be me.

I hope you all understand that this chapter is supposed to be a turning point of some sort. Of what sort, I really can't say. It might appear to be a bad turning point, for a lot of horrible stuff is about to happen to just about all the good guys. However, this transition is also a very good thing, because if bad stuff never happened to the good guys, the story would get incredibly boring.

This is the chapter where we go to the Village.

Despite my wonderfully intriguing first couple of paragraphs, this section of the plot is not really all that interesting.

What happened was this. The four of us, (that would be Elinor, Meggie, Dustfinger, and I) got into the car and sat.

And sat...

And sat...

And sat...

... And you get the idea. This is what I meant when I told you that this chapter (or at least the beginning of it) is less than mildly entertaining.

For the sake of those readers with the attention spans of small, soggy, green vegetables, I'm skipping the rest of the car ride and going straight to the lair of the archvillian.

We were greeted at the gate by a smug and menacing Basta. I would have assumed he was still sore about the whole "underwater centipede" mix-up, but years of experience have taught me that Basta is very rarely anything but smug and menacing.

After that, we were brought to Capricorn as prisoners, etceteras, you know the drill. About Capricorn, not much can be said besides that he is very, very, very, evil. And that he needs to get a tan. He has about as much color as a scarlet macaw. (That is, a scarlet macaw with its feathers bleached pure white, and who happens to be lost in a blizzard.)

By this time, the ladies (that would be Meggie and Elinor) had realized that Dustfinger had betrayed them (Oh! The agony!), so the sweet, golden haired little princess (that one's Meggie, not Elinor) was kind enough to screech a surprisingly creative set of curses and death threats at my master before they dragged her off to her prison cell. Dustfinger sort of blinked.

After the poor little nice people were unceremoniously disposed of for the night, Dustfinger politely inquired after his well earned reward. The answer he got was "Wait till tomorrow."

"That means forget it, sucker," I pointed out, as gently as possible. He took no notice. Big surprise.

"Be in the church by sunrise," said one of the henchmen. "I'd suggest getting some rest. You can sleep in one of the empty houses."

As Dustfinger turned to go, someone shouted, "Just take your mangy rodent with you!"

Had I not been confined by several solid walls of leather, I would have given the offending black-jacket-wearer the following explanation.

I AM NOT A RODENT!

I don't know how many times I've had to say this. A rodent, or a member of the order 'Rodentia', is classified by its two large front teeth. You know the type--rats, mice, rabbits, squirrels, beavers, porcupines, paccas, capybaras, and other more or less strict vegetarians.

The order mustelidae, on the other hand, have a more omnivorous diet and lack the whole 'buck-toothed' feature. The mustelid category includes otters, weasels, mink, ferrets, stoats, wolverines, skunks, and among many others, martens, with horns and without.

The moral of the story is never ever confuse one of the mighty mustelidae with a rodent. Oh, and just as an after thought, I'm not mangy either.

Top of Form

Bottom of Form


	7. Chapter 6

A/N: Yes, I updated, and no, you're not dreaming. Thanks so much to the many people (I think Sword Pen counts more than once) who have been bugging me via reviews and PMs to actually work on this story. I really have been ignoring it. Actually, if you're bored and want to read something ridiculous and Inkheart-related, I suggest checking out my Inkheart/HP crossover, found on my profile. It's co-written with the wonderful mynameisbob, and is even more whacked out than this story.

Disclaimer: I offer my sincerest apologies to Cornelia Funke, Nathaniel Hawthorn, and Bob. (Yes, you read that correctly, dear, you'll see.)

Capricorn is very fond of monochromatic coloring. Especially when it involves red. Or black, on occasion, but mostly red. For evidence, one merely has to take a good look at his church. Yes, Capricorn has his own church, located directly in the center of his personal village (which could very well be called Capritropolis) and is about as red as Hester Prynne on vacation in a field of poppies after an accident involving red paint, pasta sauce, and lots of blood.

Dustfinger had arisen bright and early on the morning of his disillusionment. Not that he knew he was about to be disillusioned—at the moment he was almost cheerful.

I, however, had a few lurking suspicions. Mostly because first hand experience has taught me that it's usually not the greatest idea to trust people who are obviously very, very evil and enjoy making other people's lives as miserable as conceivably possible.

"We're going home, Gwin," Dustfinger murmured dreamily.

"One would hope. I'll cross my claws for you."

"Hmm…"

"You know, Dustfinger, you never really listen to me when I talk to you. I'm not trying to complain, but it _is_ a bit rude."

"Shh…" he patted me on the head. "Don't worry, they'll be here soon."

"Um, that's nice, but it really has nothing to do with—"

I was cut off as the large church doors swung open, and a pair of Capricorn's unimportant flunkies entered escorting a trio of our story's little nice people. That is, the little nice people who _weren't _attempting (and failing) to pass themselves off as at least semi-evil double-crossers—namely, Silvertongue and his extended family.

After being forced to bow to the rather lumpy statue of Capricorn standing in the back of the church—yes, I know, the man's ego is off the charts—the good guys were ushered up to the front, closer to us.

A word of advice: Never be deceived by the innocent and slightly spacey look of Miss Meggie Folchart. Get on her bad side, and she can be _rather_ frightening. And this is coming from a marten who's experienced the wrath of a four-year-old Brianna and lived to tell the tale, so it's really saying something.

Anyway, right then the little blonde horror's death-glare was focused directly on the two of us. Well, mostly on Dustfinger, but since I happened to be sitting on his shoulder, I got full blast of it as well. It very nearly knocked me over.

A moment later, our dear friend good ol' cat-face (and by this I mean Basta) entered stage right carrying, for some unfathomable reason, a carton of lighter fluid. Dustfinger lowered the matchstick he was playing with (it can pretty much taken for granted that given a momentary break in the action, Dustfinger will be playing with matches) and straightened up as Basta, for some other unfathomable reason, handed him the gas can.

At this point in time, Basta apparently decided that it was a good idea to pursue his very favorite hobby. Actually, it might be a bit more than a hobby, because pretty much everything in Basta's life, when he's not busy avoiding ladders and horseshoes, revolves around making Dustfinger's day worse.

"Ah," said Basta, in his scratchy kitty voice. "So Dustfinger's playing with his best friend again."

"Ooh, ouch," I interjected only slightly sarcastically. "Do something, Dust-Oh! You can't possibly take that one lying down."

"Another toy for you," Basta indicated the canister of flammable liquid, "Light us a fire; that's what you like best."

"Oh, give me a break," said I, "How is that even supposed to be insulting?"

"So how about you?" asked Dustfinger, quietly. "Still afraid of fire, are you?"

Basta knocked the burning matchstick out of Dustfinger's hand.

"Oh, you shouldn't do that! It means bad luck. You know how quickly fire takes offense."

It was perfect. You could see the battle raging inside Basta's brain—his two top priorities were clashing. His absolute terror of anything connected to "bad luck" versus his age-old obsession with physically abusing Dustfinger. Bad luck won out, apparently, because Basta soon reverted back to his default setting—trying to seem cool and menacing without ever actually doing anything cool or menacing.

"You're lucky I just cleaned my knife!"

See what I mean? What kind of a death threat is that?

"One more trick like that and I'll carve a few nice new patterns on your ugly face."

"Except you won't, because you can't get your sparkly knife dirty, remember? And no one did any tricks. _You_ were the one who decided to bother _us_. We were just sitting here."

"…and make myself a fur collar out of your marten."

"Just you try it! I'll call the P.E.T.A. on you."

"Yes I'm sure you'd enjoy that," said Dustfinger. The King of snappy comebacks, my master is.

Around then was when Capricorn showed up. I think you know pretty much how this scene ends. It is worth noting, however, that Capricorn is _considerably_ better than Basta at making Dustfinger's day worse.

I won't bother you with to many details, but once things started to get violent I sensibly elected to hightail it out of there. Avoiding a kick from some miscellaneous background person, I slipped out through a partially open side door.

The day was bright and sunny. I wanted to avoid running into a large concentration of Black jackets, so I slipped away from Capritropolis central via a narrow, dark ally. I knew of a few cozy spots in Capricorn's village, mostly the result of being stuck hanging around while Dustfinger thought up plots to rescue Resa. The first of them was occupied by a solitary Capricornian, who was spacing out and humming "The Red Rooster is Coming to Town" under his breath. The second was relatively vacant. It was a ledge between a small, dilapidated building, and an even smaller, more dilapidated wall, both of which were covered in graffiti. I sat down between two sections of wall, one reading "Rodney wuz here" and the other declaring "Beware! The floating orange pinochle will soon be upon us!"

The commotion in the church would soon die down, one way or another, I thought. I only had to wait a bit.


	8. Chapter 7

A/N: Yes, I updated, and no, you're not dreaming

AN: Heh, well, it's been a while, hasn't it? I just hope the people who've been waiting for this chapter still sort of remember what happened in the last one.

Capricorn's village is infested with cats. I don't know if it's because Capricorn likes cats or because cats like Capricorn, but the fact remains that the flea-bitten feline flotsam are everywhere. As in, one can hardly throw a rock without hitting some spaced out cat. Not that I recommend throwing rocks at cats as a productive, respectable way to pass the time.

As afternoon began to turn to evening, I decided that I should probably find out what happened to dear old Dustfinger (I do worry about him, he tends to attract trouble) and it seemed to me at the time that the obvious way to get information would be to ask a devil's village native—i.e. a cat. So I sauntered casually up to the nearest specimen and addressed it as politely as I could manage.

"Good evening to you, I was wondering—"

"Egads! A talking behemoth!"

There was a short pause.

"I'm a marten, actually. Now would you—"

"Oi! Ferdie! C'mere an' look at this behemoth!"

I should mention that cats are generally a dignified, elegant and highly intelligent species. As is evident, there are exceptions.

Ferdie, a splotchy white and marmalade creature did not actually come over so much as raise his head slightly and open his eyes.

"Ain't no moth," said Ferdie, "Looks more like a small, flesh-eating mammal, like a weasel but larger."

"I didn't say moth," snapped the first cat, "I said behemoth. There's a—"

"I heard you and I say he be no moth. A moth is more like a gloomy butterfly. They taste horrid, like a centipede. Say, have you ever read that book, the one about singing with the centipedes underwater?"

"I've…heard of it," I was beginning to realize that this would be a complete waste of my ever so valuable time. "I was just looking for someone—"

"Oh yeah? What color was they?"

"Color?" I thought that was an odd sort of thing to ask. "Err, sort of paleish-orange, I guess…"

"Tabby, huh?"

"What? No, I'm talking about a human."

"A human? What do you want one of them for? They smell."

"This one's okay. He's a bit beat-up looking and wears a long coat of indeterminate color."

"What color is 'indentered-minite'?"

"Brownish-greenish-grayish."

"Oh! I think I've seen 'im! Was he carrying a big balloon shaped sorta like a tentaculed monster, with 'happy birthday Marian' on it?"

"No…"

"Are you sure? Well, then, never mind."

After what felt like another millennia or so of extracting such fascinatingly useless information from my two new friends (I won't bother you with any more specifics) I finally got away using the excuse that I thought I heard my behemoth buddies calling me and slipped away. Soon after, I managed to find Dustfinger without any outside help other than the large, ominous cloud of angst floating three feet or so above his head. He was sitting on the steps outside the back door of Capricorn's unspeakably fancy house (yes, having his own church was just not enough) accompanied by a somewhat distressed looking Resa. I say she was distressed-looking because she was obviously trying to communicate with Dustfinger via some interesting charades, and Dustfinger was not being the most responsive audience. She was also managing to do this without putting down the large basket of laundry she was holding.

Upon the sight or yours truly, Resa the incredibly talented mime-woman tapped sharply on my favorite pet human's shoulder and made a gesture that said very clearly "Look, there's your marten friend."

Dustfinger looked up and said "Oh."

"Where've you been?" I asked, jumping up onto the step alongside them, "And yuck, what did you do to your arms? Reach through and inferno?"

As usual, he didn't answer me, but picked me up and tickled me under the chin. He does that when he's feeling miserable about life and everything in general. You know, fuzz therapy.

"It's all over, Gwin," he murmured, "We're stuck here. Forever."

"Yeah well, I warned you before not to get your hopes up, but did you listen?"

"Hmm." He looked at Resa, who was standing a little ways off so that the angst-cloud would drip on her basket of freshly washed black-jacket style underwear. "I'll see you around then," he got up, "There's some things I should…take care of." He smiled gloomily (yes, he can do that. He's Dustfinger, he can do anything gloomily.) Resa stood and watched us slink down the alleyway, until someone from inside yelled for her to hurry up.

"Um, where are we going?" I asked, a little nervously.

No answer.

"Listen, if you're going to commit suicide by jumping off a building or something, remember to put me down first."

But we didn't jump off a building. Instead we made our way to Basta's house, where we casually let ourselves in. You might be surprised to discover that Dustfinger actually spends quite a bit of time hanging around in Basta's house, usually for no particular reason other than to mess with Basta's brain. You know, we do things like change all the clocks to the wrong time, put snakes (and the occasional singing centipede) in his boots, hide all his socks, ect. You know, fun stuff.

This time, however, we were on a mission. We crept up the rickety old staircase and slid into Basta's bedroom. Basta keeps his set of keys under his pillow, which would pose a serious problem, except that Basta happens to be one of those people who hugs their pillows while they sleep (I'll bet you didn't know that. He just doesn't seem the type.) Anyway, he hugs his pillow and then rolls over every once and awhile, which leaves the ring of keys exposed and unguarded on the corner of the mattress, unless they've already been pushed onto the floor.

After pocketing the keys, Dustfinger also picked up the infamous and oh-so-prettily sparkling switchblade from the bedside table. Then, before leaving, he paused, glancing at the oblivious (and quietly snoring) Basta.

"Hmm… What do you think, Gwin? Should we take his good-luck necklace, too?"

"Yes."

Dustfinger crept closer and leaned over the bed, just as Basta rolled over and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "Off with his ugly scar-faced head…"

"…" Said Dustfinger.

"…Or let's just leave," said I.

We slunk back down the stairs and on our way without further ado, although Dustfinger's cloud got stuck in the foyer on the way out.


End file.
